BLACK HILLS WATBR 277

tion movements which seek, for the good of the people generally,to promote the unhampered but economical use of all our nat-ural resources�minerals, water, soil and all the other gifts ofnature to mankind. Thus, if the teacher of geography has abroad vision and an intelligent grasp of the subject, the pupilsmay be led, through the element of forestry in geography, toget an insight into what is npvv one of the greatest questions thatconfront our statesmen and economists�how to handle our nat-ural resources.

AN ALKALI WATER FROM THE BLACK HILLS.

BY NICHOLAS KNIGHT,Cornell College, Mount Vernon, la.

A specimen of water from a. well thirty feet deep, near theBlack Hills, in Butte County, South Dakota, was sent to us a fewweeks ago for analysis. It was strongly alkaline, the sodium andpotassium carbonates comprising three fourths of the total solidresidue. A striking peculiarity of the water was its deep browncolor. Boiling did not affect this in any way, nor did it comedown in any of the precipitates, and it could not be filtered off.When the water was distilled most of the color remained behindin the flask, but even the distillate was tinged with brown. Weare indebted to Mr. Ralph Ege of the Cornell chemical depart-ment for making the analysis.The results of the analysis are as follows. The numbers ex-

press the amounts of the various constituents in 100,000 parts ofthe water:

Total solid residue ...............................................81.84Silica ............................................................. 3.06Iron and alumina ................................................. 0.38Carbon ........................................................... 3.14Calcium carbonate ................................................ 3.91Calcium sulphate ................................................. 0.65Magnesium carbonate ............................................. 10.48Sodium carbonate ..................................................36.94Potassium carbonate ..............................................23.17

The carbon found in the water probably accounts in a measureat least for the brown coloration, and it is doubtless a peaty water.